


Harm·onious

by asongstress1422



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Arranged Marriage, Assassination Plot(s), Blood, Death, F/M, Fear, One Shot, Pets, Pregnancy, Short One Shot, Strangers to Lovers, Zutara, first year
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-22
Updated: 2018-03-22
Packaged: 2019-04-06 10:48:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14055312
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/asongstress1422/pseuds/asongstress1422
Summary: Zuko give's his new bride a foxcat kitten. The first year of the arrange marriage between the Fire Lord and his Water Tribe wife.





	Harm·onious

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think!!

“I got you a Foxcat kitten," he unceremoniously dropped a white ball of fluff in her arms, color in his cheeks. It mewed pitifully as it burrowed into her chest.

“Thank you, Fire Lord," Katara said as she tried to restrain the wiggling creature, perplexed at his gift.

“Your, uh, welcome.” He abruptly turned and marched from the room informing over his shoulder, “I have a meeting. I’ll see you at dinner.”

She sat down heavily once he was gone. What was she going to do with the man? He shoved small animals at her one second seemingly wanting to please her then he was storming off again. The small thing in question brought her from her thoughts when it’s sharp claws found their way through the silk of her hanfu and into the tender flesh of her chest.

Katara tried detangling its nails not wanting to hurt it. Holding it in both hands away from her body she got a closer look at it.

It yipped, wriggling searching for warmth, and opened its eyes. She caught her breath. In the white face it’s right eye was a brilliant molten amber. Its left was the blue of moon lit tundra ice.

She stared at it and it stared back.

“What is _that?”_  A maid hissed as she came in the room.

Katara cradled the animal in her lap disliking the disgust in the woman’s voice. “It is a foxcat kitten.”

“It can’t possibly be. They are only ever red or orange.”

“Well the Fire Lord called it a foxcat, who am I to say other wise.” That shut the girl up, pinching her lips tight at the sensor from the younger woman.

At dinner that night she laid a palm on his hand. “Thank you for Steam.”

“Steam?” the Fire Lord asked baffled.

“The foxcat you gave me.”

“You named it steam?”

She drew her hand away pressing them in her own lap, embarrassed. “Well, she is kind of a dusty white and she has the yellow and blue eyes, like fire mixing with water, so I thought Steam was a good name. I can change it to something more to your liking, Fire Lord.”

“No!” he grabbed her hand, “the Foxcat is yours, Katara. I though the exact same thing when I saw it-she, that she was a mixture of both water and fire. Steam is a excellent name.”

* * *

 Steam grew to be about calf high. For her size she was very hard to detect slipping silently and quickly through the palace when she wasn’t with Katara, though she always coming when her master called.

One day katara calls for Steam as she’s finishing some reports. The kit doesn’t come. Katara goes out on the courtyard deck wondering where she is and finds her body. There was no blood on the wood but her fur was dye red and matted with it. Her one yellow eye stared lifeless. The blue one was only a gouged hole.

* * *

 “Katara, I’m back,” Zuko called shucking off his Fire Robes and leaving them hanging in the front hall. “You wouldn’t believe some of these men’s audacity. I can’t wait till they meet you and you can cut them down to size. You're so much better at it than me.” He entered the side room where she took her late afternoon tea. She sat at the low table, her back to the late day sun that burnished everything in orange heat as it spilled through the opened walls that led to the courtyard. She stared at some point beyond the solid wall infront of her that held the fire nation emblem, unseeing, afull cup of tea before her.

“Katara?” he questioned. She turned her head slowly to meet his concerned face. What he saw there in her stare caused his heart rate to increase. “What's wrong?”

“I’m pregnant.” A single tear slipped over her cheek at the hollow words.

He closed the space between them falling to his knees beside her and taking one of her hands between his. It was cold. “I want to feel ecstatic by this news, Katara. I wanna feel pride. But your tone makes me believe this is not what you want.”

She looked down at their joined hands. Her eyes traveled up the length of his arm to his face and stared at him. Finally something in her eyes melted and more tears poured over.

“I’m so scared.” The broken whisper was the worst pain he could ever imagine. “I want this baby more than anything in the world.” Sobs wracked her body as he pulled her to his chest. “But what if she’s killed, Zuko? What if my baby is murdered just because I am her mother? I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.” She wailed against him.

All he could do was hold her. He would make no promises he couldn’t keep, not to Katara. He would not falsely negate her fears. He believed in her too much to try and shield her from the potential truths. No matter how much he wanted to, no matter how much his heart bled with hers.

The sun had set when she finally quieted. He just kept her against him, rubbing soothing lines down her back. He knew it didn’t help but sometimes one could only stand by and watch as someone shattered and be there for them when they resurfaced.

And resurface Katara did. As the moon began spilling her silvery light across the landscaped she pulled away from Zuko. In the shadows of the room she bent over and grabbed the other cup from the tea service on the floor setting it in front of him. Retrieving the pot from the same place she filled it.

Knowing her dislike of cold tea he reached over and heated her cup even though it ruined the flavor of the leaves.

“Thank you.” Her voice was hoarse but no less strong.

“You’re welcome.” He sipped his cold.

She set her cup on the table, porcelain clenched between both hands staring straight ahead. “They killed Steam.”

He felt a pang in his heart and closed his eyes against the surprised pain. It was Katara’s pet and though because of that they had spent rather a lot of time in close proximity of each other he hadn’t realized he felt anything over the animal.

But the more he thought about it the more he realized that wasn’t true. It was the first thing he gave Katara that was for purely selfless reasons. Steam had marked a turning point in their relationship that he hadn’t even realized til now was significant. She had become the physical representation of them coming together, not only legally and for the greater good but because they wanted to.

And now she was gone.

“I'm sorry,” he said quietly. She nodded slowly, showing she heard him and acknowledging the weight of the words he had given.

“Her throat was cut and her blue eye was stabbed out.” Zuko went cold. Steam wasn’t killed solely because she was something Katara loved, while devastating it was the more optimistic reason, but because of what she also represented; the mixing of water and fire. They wanted the water cut out of a solely fire nation creature.

This was a full on threat to Katara’s life and the life of anyone perceived to condone the mixing of cultures. And Katara was now pregnant with the Fire Lord’s child.

“I want to have a funeral for her.”

“Where is her body?”

“I hid it under the bed when the maid brought the tea.” She rubbed at a spot on her sleeve. “Red has one thing going for it, it hides the blood.” She stood using Zuko’s shoulder as a brace when her legs cramped from sitting so long. 

Before she could move off, Zuko caught her hand on his shoulder, kissing her wrist. She brought her other hand up into his hair and he wrapped his arm around her hip drawing her close to him. "I will find the ones who did this," he vowed against her stomach. 

He felt her draw in a deep breath and let it out slowly; centering herself. The grief was still there, would remain for a long time, but she was a fighter and she would not allow herself to wallow when danger threatened. She pressed him closer, accepting his comfort, before stepping out of his embrace. “I’ll go get her.”


End file.
